In this newsletter, a preview of the new issue of YES!What Would Nature Do?Nature has been building, transforming, creating, and developing for billions of years. Homo sapiens have only been at it for a couple hundred thousand—and we’re about to spoil the whole thing. In our latest issue, we examine how to learn from nature and take our proper place working with and nurturing the rest of the world—instead of destroying it.

A California proposal would offset the state’s climate-altering emissions by paying for forest conservation in Chiapas. Could there be unintended consequences in a region with a history of human rights abuse and land grabs?Could California’s Climate Scheme Hurt Mexican Farmers?by Jeff ConantCalifornia officials view international offsets as a potential means to help the developing world and tackle climate change. But judging from the reaction on the streets of San Cristóbal, Mexican peasants see it differently.

The Governor’s Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF) was founded in 2009 when 16 states and provinces, from California to Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, and from Cross-River State, Nigeria, to Acre, Brazil, decided to explore ways to implement a program called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD). REDD is a program intended to fight climate change by stopping deforestation—and has generated fierce resistance among sectors of the rural poor and indigenous peoples.

A storyteller asks what you’d do if you knew your body was part of the water web.Your Body is a Body of Waterby Jourdan KeithYou are a body of water.If you knew this, would you protect yourself?The water in your body is part of the water cycle and connected to every other body of water.If you knew this, would you want to protect all the bodies of water on the planet?

I would ask my father this, if he were still alive, if his internal environment had not been polluted by the tributaries of toxins that flowed into his six-foot frame.

If you were taught that the environment was something else and somewhere else—important and wild, that it needed protecting but that it was seals, bears, and rivers—and not your composition of cells, bones, and water—what would you do? If you found out that you were as contaminated as the estuary called Puget Sound, or as the endangered orcas that swim in those waters because, just like them, without your consent, you are exposed to known and suspected carcinogens on a daily basis, what would you do?READ MORE ...

Although a ballot initiative to label foods containing genetically modified organisms failed in California, the organizers behind the measure say their movement is better organized and larger than ever before.

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Commentary

Greenpeace’s Kumi Naidoo: Time to Stand Against Big Oil in the Arcticby Kumi NaidooOil companies—and many of our political leaders—see melting sea ice as an opportunity to drill more. Fortunately, you don’t have to occupy an Arctic drilling platform to join the growing movement of people who are putting themselves on the line for our planet’s future.

Book Review

Fatherhood Confronts Climate Changeby Anna FaheyEnvironmental journalist Mark Hertsgaard's “Hot” describes what life will be like for his daughter's generation.Joy Harjo’s Crazy Braveby Rebecca LeisherNative American poet Joy Harjo declares, “I was not brave.” But her memoir is a gift that urges us to enlist our own crazy bravery to step through the doorways in our lives.

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